This invention relates to an attachment kit to convert a self-propelled, rotary tiller with rear tines and motor driven wheels into a towing machine. It also relates to a towing tower hitch for a nut harvester that easily connects onto the attachment kit.
The increasing popularity of home gardening has increased the demand for a simple, effective, and economical attachment kit for converting a rotary tiller into a light-duty towing machine for year-round duty. For a nominal cost, the tiller owner can have both a tilling machine, as well as, a towing machine for lightweight nut harvesters, garden carts, trailers, etc.
Such an attachment kit ideally should be easily and readily mountable and dismountable from the frame of the tiller and should effectively convert a self-propelled, rear tine, motor driven wheeled rotary tiller into a towing machine.
None of the rotary tillers of the prior art provide for an attachment kit with a swiveling wheel to convert the rotary tiller into an efficient and effective towing machine. For example, the rotary tiller disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,520,253 to Kesting (1996) does not offer an attachment kit with a swiveling wheel for the purpose of pulling objects behind it. None of the eighteen applications this patent offers (tilling, grading, removing snow, shredding, edging, mowing, wet lands tilling, hard ground tilling, rolling, aerating, dethatching, scooping, lifting, cross country transporting, and automatic ixing and separating) apply to behind-the-rotary-tiller towing.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,591,001, Garden Tillers, to Barbee (1986) shows a toolbar attachment assembly, however, the assembly is expressly used for plows.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,168,692, Nut Harvesting Apparatus, to Dudley (1992) does not provide for an attachment kit with a swiveling wheel and towing tower for the purpose of pulling behind a rotary tiller. If the harvester is pulled by a tractor or riding lawn mower, the nuts are crushed into the ground before being harvested. The rotary tiller is lighter weight and prevents this problem.